Well off subject, but I did Henry V and two of the Canterbury Tales for "O" level. One was the Miller's Tale but I can't remember the other.
This inspired me to search for the papers on the internet and I was surprised to see that in an OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE SCHOOLS EXAMINATION BOARD document, it mentions Examination papers set for individual schools - Christâ€™s Hospital - 1949

fra828 wrote:A very rare (!)cheer went up in the class when Miss Morrison announced that our set texts would be Jane Eyre, Macbeth , and poems of Thomas Hardy: 'when dunkery frowns on Exon Moor....' Can anyone else remember this poem? Wish I could find the Summer 1972 (London Board) O level Eng Lit paper online, for nostagia's sake!

jhopgood wrote:Well off subject, but I did Henry V and two of the Canterbury Tales for "O" level. One was the Miller's Tale but I can't remember the other.
This inspired me to search for the papers on the internet and I was surprised to see that in an OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE SCHOOLS EXAMINATION BOARD document, it mentions Examination papers set for individual schools - Christâ€™s Hospital - 1949

Katharine wrote: I know we all fell in love with Mr Rochester and we started calling the school surveyor (?) Mr Rochester! He was a mysterious man who appeared now and then, who looked at the buildings.

Hello Katharine. Better late than never (as I said, I don't visit the site as often as I should) but I thought you might like to know a bit more about the mysterious school surveyor. He was a family friend called Fred Hall, who lived with his elderly parents just across road from us in London. The firm he worked for was based in Dean's Yard. Westminster I think and he ended up looking after the school buildings because he knew Hertford having been evacuated there during the war - he went to Richard Hale.

Fred is still alive - in his early 80s now , still in touch with my mother - and he never married........!

When I did for O level it was Macbeth and Hardy's Trumpet Major. There was the option of one of Chaucer's tales but the teacher made the choice - thank goodness I didn't have to worry about Olde English. I did appreciate that Horsham would put on in Big School whatever Shakespeare play was set for the year.

Hi Katharine - yes, he was - in an austere way. Have to say I had a bit of a thing for him myself. I have just watched a re-run of Jane Eyre on ITV3 (great channel!) with Ciaron Hinds as Mr Rochester - and in terms of looks, Fred wasn't unlike him. In terms of personality though Fred was as unlike Mr Rochester as you could get - very quiet and shy. Which made his visits to Hertford a bit of an ordeal I suspect!
Julie (Bennett)
Sevens 65-72

Love the story about the school surveyor ! Unfortunately, he somehow never crossed my orbit ! He sounds more like a Mr Darcy than a Mr Rochester.

I loved "My Family and Other Animals" and, as a teenager, read every single word of every single Gerald Durrell book ( that was a lot of books). I adored "Cider With Rosie". We also read Tess of the D'Urbevilles and The Mayor of Casterbbridge so I read every single Hardy Novel ( as a teenager). Miss Richards read us "Jane Eyre" while we sat in silent terror doing our needlework. I love that book....must read it again. I'm sure the versions we read at school were well and truly abridged. We must have read a Dickens. ...David Copperfield ? We did "St Joan" and "Androcles" ( Mrs Betterton wasn't that keen on Shaw as she felt he spoiled the narrative by philosophising too much)....but Mrs Betterton did like Hardy's poems....the one I remember studying with her was something like " You did not come, and marching time drew on and wore me numb" ....it was about being stood up. We studied Macbeth, Hamlet , Richard 111, King Lear and Much Ado about Nothing....in the third year A Midsummer Night's Dream probably a few others too. We also covered an anthology of 20th C poems for O level , Causley, Hughes, Larkin, Betjeman , Dickinson, Stevie Smith , Plath. We read The Belljar and Catcher in the Rye as well as To Kill a Mockingbird and A member of The Wedding....or maybe I'm getting carried away. My own guilty pleasure at the time were Dennis Wheatley Black Magic stories of which there was a stash in the Infirmary...most unsuitable for Christian young ladies.

Alexandra Thrift wrote:Love the story about the school surveyor ! Unfortunately, he somehow never crossed my orbit ! He sounds more like a Mr Darcy than a Mr Rochester.

Perhaps he was more like Mr Darcy - but we didn't do Pride & Pred until two years later! (O levels for us were Pride & Pred, Animal Farm, Pygmalion and Twelfth Night) I still love Jane Austen and have the complete works in matching hardbacks.

Katharine Dobson (Hills) 6.14, 1959 - 1965
Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia!

But who could forget 'Lord of the Flies' and 'Animal Farm'? Or have these been mentioned already?

Oops ! obviously I could forget them, Mary !

Actually, of all the books we studied , they were my least favourite. I wasn't
interested in Pigs and Horses speaking, or the political ramifications . At that age, for me , a story should be a story...not political analysis nor ( re: Lord of the Flies ) psycho-social allegory. I preferred escapist romance, idealised biography or black magic.

Can't remember To Kill A Mockingbird or Catcher in the Rye either - but Alex, thanks so much for reminding me of that beautiful Hardy poem.......it was one that I returned to tearfully several times in later years after disastrous love affairs!!

I still also love Under Milk Wood. And Paradise Lost. And, of course Chaucer - Troilus and Cressida remember how beautifully Mrs Betterton read it to us.

I seem to remember doing an awful lot of Shakespeare's history plays - didn't we have to read Richard II all the way through to Henry V just to set Henry IV part one (or was it part two?) in context. Was that for O level or A Level? -

As for guilty pleasures..... Anya Seton - particularly "Katharine" Didn't we all fall in love with John of Gaunt?!

Anya Seton - that brings back memories. I don't think I've read anything by her since I left school. For even more of a guilty pleasure does anyone else remember the stock of Barbara Cartland books in 2's library? Those and quite a few Mills and Boon. That was about all there was and I must have read them all during rainy Saturday afternoons. I doubt Miss Morrison would have approved, but then she didn't approve of much that I did! Clearly they thought them suitable reading for young ladies!